The 10 best pranks in college sports history

Mar. 7, 2013
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Ned Stark disapproves. / @KButter1

by Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this year, North Carolina students stole Duke's mascot costume, cut off its head and put it on a spike in Chapel Hill. In honor of the teams renewing their rivalry on Saturday, we look back at the best pranks in college sports history. Did the Blue Devil decapitation make our list?

10. The pre-Catfish Catfish

Years before Manti Te'o and Lennay Kekua, a star USC point guard was fooled in a Catfish incident of his own. Gabe Pruitt began receiving online messages and pictures from a comely UCLA co-ed named Victoria, who said she wanted to party with him after USC's season-ending game against California. Pruitt agreed and gave Victoria his phone number. Only, there was no Victoria. It was a group of Cal students posing as an attractive blonde in order to get into Pruitt's head. They succeeded.

Cal students began chanting "Victoria! Victoria!" and yelled out Pruitt's phone number when he went to the foul line for the first time. The 79% shooter missed both shots, then had an abysmal 3 for 13 day from the field. Cal went on to win the crucial game by 11 points and earned a berth into the 2006 NCAA tournament.

9. Bevo branded

Texas acquired its live mascot -- an orange-tinted longhorn -- in 1916. While students decided what to do with the wild steer, four Texas A&M students found Bevo in a stockyard and branded him with "13-0," the score of the 1915 Texas-Texas A&M game. Due to the high cost of keeping the steer in wartime, Texas ended up barbecuing Bevo and serving him at a football banquet with A&M in 1920. The Aggies were presented with the "13-0" hide.

8. Harvard admits Harvard sucks

Yale students posing as fictitious Harvard Pep Squad members handed out signs to Crimson fans at the annual rivalry game. When held up in unison, the signs would collectively read "GO HARVARD." Or so they claimed.

Cal Tech doesn't have a football team, but that hasn't stopped the school from pulling off two of the greatest pranks in college football history. The first was the forerunner to the Harvard-Yale prank mentioned above. In 1961, Cal Tech students switched Washington's instruction sheets before the Rose Bowl, which led to thousands of Huskies fans holding up a massive "CALTECH" sign for a national television audience. In 1984, Cal Tech students hacked into the Rose Bowl scoreboard to make it read "Cal Tech 38, MIT 9."

5. The VT at UVA

An architect who graduated from Virginia Tech claims he added a T-shaped building to a V-shaped area at Virginia's Scott Stadium. The VT was to be a secret homage to his Hokies. Virginia officials claimed they never noticed. Is it legit? Looking at a picture of the since-renovated area is like a Rorschach test of your Virginia football loyalties.

4. MIT's balloon

Chalk another one up for the smart kids. Brothers at the DKE house at MIT snuck into Harvard Stadium eight times before the 1983 Harvard-Yale game, planted a freon-driven hydraulic balloon device and wired it into the electrical grid under the field. During the game, they deployed, then exploded, a black balloon with "MIT" written on it. The prank was a massive success and led to a quintessentially-'80s press conference in which DEKE brothers boasted about their efforts, sipped on beer and, evidently, weren't required to wear pants.

3. The Play overruled?

Stanford fans were understandably furious after losing to Cal in the most wild, controversial finish in college football history. As revenge, Stanford's newspaper editors created a fake edition of Cal's student newspaper, The Daily Cal, that claimed the result of the game was overturned. They distributed the editions all over Berkeley and watched as some readers bought the hoax.

2. This train don't stop here anymore

On the night before the Yellow Jackets were set to arrive in Auburn for an 1896 game (yes, 1896), Auburn students greased the train tracks leading in and out of the local station. When Georgia Tech's train came into town, it skidded through town and didn't stop for five more miles. The GT football team had to make the trek back to town, then went on to lose, 45-0.

1. Army steals Navy's goat

The most intense rivalry in college sports has seen pranks dating back 100 years. There have been canons dumped into rivers, uniform thefts, email blasts, painted messages, flybys, stale cheese, flour dumps and helicopters dropping ping pong balls on cadets in formation. One of the oldest, and most simple, is still the best. Army first stole Navy's goat mascot, Bill, in 1953. Since then, the goat has been taken on a number of occasions. It's been found tied to a post near the Pentagon or appearing in a New York Times ad reading, "Hey Navy, do you know where your kid is today?" Navy got even in 1991 and stole Army's mule for the first time.